5 ms·

49 EUR a mont or about 600 EUR a year. I live in neighbouring Luxembourg now and here it's very simple: public transportation inside the country are free. No

49 EUR a mont or about 600 EUR a year. I live in neighbouring Luxembourg now and here it's very simple: public transportation inside the country are free. No need to register or anything: you just hop in and it's free. For tourists, for expats/residents/natives: doesn't matter, it's all free. Income tax goes as high as 40% in Luxembourg (for the high earners) but it sure seems like people here do get a lot in return for their taxes.

kitten_mittens_ 3y ago
Income tax when I lived in Germany ('17-'19) was 42%. The Soli tax was another 5%. Transit was relatively expensive compared to Boston, where I live now, but in much better shape. Transit coverage in the suburbs seemed much better too.
gv83 3y ago
isn't Luxembourg a notorious tax haven? more like people there get a lot in return for other people taxes...
- dathinab 3y ago
  for companies it's a tax haven for private people it isn't except it is because if you have a very high amount of money you can do all kind of tricks to reduce you personal income (on which you pay high tax) without actually losing out on much, e.g. by having a company have this income instead of you, and you just happen to have 100% control of the company ;=) for money you spend on private exp-endures of luxury there is often a limit on how much you can trick around so you still have to pay yourself out a not so small amount of money as income and in turn Luxembourg still get a nice amount of tax. (Edit: Legal tax avoidance of very wealthy people, works roughly like this pretty much everywhere, not just Luxembourg.)
thefz 3y ago
We are talking 2000 square Km versus 357'000. You can understand that the costs would scale fast.
- 2-718-281-828 3y ago
  but doesn't the cost scale roughly proportional with population and potential customers?
  - TulliusCicero 3y ago
    No, because there are entire classes of regional/intercity* trains that Germany is providing with the 49EUR ticket that can't even exist within Luxembourg. A German going 100km may well still be within Germany, a Luxembourger going 100k is now on an international trip, one that Luxembourg's free tickets obviously don't cover. The further trains go, generally the more expensive tickets are, because you get fewer economies of scale compared to local trips within a metro area, and infrastructure upkeep is probably more expensive for such long trips through more remote areas. * not the fast ones, but still
    - felurx 3y ago
      Are you using "intercity" literally, as in "between cities"? Intercity (IC) is a specific type of train in Germany, which (aside from some edge cases) you can't use with the 49€ ticket. I think you're thinking of the REs (RE is short for Regionalexpress), those go between cities too, but make more stops in smaller towns etc, and those are included in the ticket.
      - TulliusCicero 3y ago
        Correct.
TulliusCicero 3y ago
This is a situation where national size actually does matter. Luxembourg is effectively only offering local/metro level free transit, since the country is tiny. Germany, on the other hand, has regional trains criss-crossing the country that are also free. Yes, the faster IC trains aren't included, but slower trains that go quite far are included. So, while Germany is indeed charging rather than making them free, they're also offering more than Luxembourg is.
dathinab 3y ago
Even the city of Berlin is around 59% larger then the whole country of Luxembourg (the population of Luxembourg is also around 5times smaller). It's really not hard for it to provide free public transportation. (Berlin considered doing it and it's a comparatively poor city). Generally in such small countries a lot of thing are just way easier to implement, through other things are way harder. Or in other words for many metrics comparing very small countries with non very small countries makes often no sense as the dynamics involved are just too different.

kitten_mittens_ 3y ago

Income tax when I lived in Germany ('17-'19) was 42%. The Soli tax was another 5%. Transit was relatively expensive compared to Boston, where I live now, but in much better shape. Transit coverage in the suburbs seemed much better too.

gv83 3y ago

isn't Luxembourg a notorious tax haven? more like people there get a lot in return for other people taxes...

dathinab 3y ago
for companies it's a tax haven for private people it isn't except it is because if you have a very high amount of money you can do all kind of tricks to reduce you personal income (on which you pay high tax) without actually losing out on much, e.g. by having a company have this income instead of you, and you just happen to have 100% control of the company ;=) for money you spend on private exp-endures of luxury there is often a limit on how much you can trick around so you still have to pay yourself out a not so small amount of money as income and in turn Luxembourg still get a nice amount of tax. (Edit: Legal tax avoidance of very wealthy people, works roughly like this pretty much everywhere, not just Luxembourg.)

thefz 3y ago

We are talking 2000 square Km versus 357'000. You can understand that the costs would scale fast.

2-718-281-828 3y ago
but doesn't the cost scale roughly proportional with population and potential customers?
- TulliusCicero 3y ago
  No, because there are entire classes of regional/intercity* trains that Germany is providing with the 49EUR ticket that can't even exist within Luxembourg. A German going 100km may well still be within Germany, a Luxembourger going 100k is now on an international trip, one that Luxembourg's free tickets obviously don't cover. The further trains go, generally the more expensive tickets are, because you get fewer economies of scale compared to local trips within a metro area, and infrastructure upkeep is probably more expensive for such long trips through more remote areas. * not the fast ones, but still
  - felurx 3y ago
    Are you using "intercity" literally, as in "between cities"? Intercity (IC) is a specific type of train in Germany, which (aside from some edge cases) you can't use with the 49€ ticket. I think you're thinking of the REs (RE is short for Regionalexpress), those go between cities too, but make more stops in smaller towns etc, and those are included in the ticket.
    - TulliusCicero 3y ago
      Correct.

TulliusCicero 3y ago

This is a situation where national size actually does matter. Luxembourg is effectively only offering local/metro level free transit, since the country is tiny. Germany, on the other hand, has regional trains criss-crossing the country that are also free. Yes, the faster IC trains aren't included, but slower trains that go quite far are included. So, while Germany is indeed charging rather than making them free, they're also offering more than Luxembourg is.

dathinab 3y ago

Even the city of Berlin is around 59% larger then the whole country of Luxembourg (the population of Luxembourg is also around 5times smaller). It's really not hard for it to provide free public transportation. (Berlin considered doing it and it's a comparatively poor city). Generally in such small countries a lot of thing are just way easier to implement, through other things are way harder. Or in other words for many metrics comparing very small countries with non very small countries makes often no sense as the dynamics involved are just too different.